"Common-room" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Latin, and logic, early rising, and walks in the country with a pocket Horace. From my own experience of reading parties, I should select as their peculiar characteristics, a tendency to hats and caps of such remarkable shapes, as, if once sported in the college quadrangle, would be the subject of a common-room instanter; and, among some individuals (whom we may call the peripatetic philosophers of the party) a predilection for seedy shooting-coats and short pipes, with which they perambulate the neighbourhood to the marvel of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... our means, and our shelter. There was a little passage which ran quite across from east to west. On the church side of this there was my mother's kitchen, which was to be what I fondly marked the "common-room." This was quite long from east to west, and not more than half as long the other way. But on the east side, where I could have no windows, I cut off, on its whole width, a deep closet; and this proved a very fortunate thing afterward, as you shall see. On the west side I made one large square ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... Old John, the Common-room man, who had heard this speech made to hundreds of "governors" through many generations of freshmen, could not repress a few pantomimic asides, that were suggestive of anything but full credence in his master's words. But Mr. Green was delighted ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... all of the Americans adjourned for coffee to Ciret's, a little cafe in the village which nestles among the hills not far from the camp. The cafe itself was like any one of thousands of French provincial restaurants. There was a great dingy common room, with a sanded brick floor, and faded streamers of tricolor paper festooned in curious patterns from the smoky ceiling. The kitchen was clean, and filled with the appetizing odor of good cooking. Beyond it was another, inner room, "toujours reservee a mes Americains," as ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... the common room was full of customers, as the great yard was full of vehicles of every sort—carts, cabriolets,[4] char-a-bancs, tilburys,[5] unnamable carriages, shapeless, patched, with, their shafts reaching heavenward like arms, or with ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... their supper in the common room of the hostelry, there was a stir outside, and three men, attired as Puritan preachers, entered the room. Mine host received them with courtesy, but with none of the eager welcome usually displayed to guests; for these gentry, ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... the happening of these events, a weary soldier, a half-starved convict, and a sailor covered with bruises, met by chance in the common room of a tavern. For some minutes they were too exhausted to speak. At length, the convict declared that the organisation of Her Majesty's Prisons ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 19, 1892 • Various
... October, 1836, four months after Hurrell's death, he came into residence at Oriel. That distinguished society was then at the climax of its fame; Dr. Hawkins was beginning his long career as Provost; Newman and Church were Fellows; the Oriel Common Room had a reputation unrivalled in Oxford, and was famous far beyond the precincts of the University. But of these circumstances Froude thought little, or nothing. He felt free. For the first time in ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... of two hours my visitors depart, and we lose no time—for we must rise at cockcrow—in spreading our mats round the common room. You would admire the Somali pillow [29], a dwarf pedestal of carved wood, with a curve upon which the greasy poll and its elaborate frisure repose. Like the Abyssinian article, it resembles the head-rest ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... moment, sunk plainly in reflection. Presently his bloodshot eyes began to travel respectfully and even timidly over the objects about him. In truth the room in which he found himself was worthy of inspection, for it was no common room, either in aspect or furnishing. It boasted, it is true, none of the weird properties, the skulls and corpse-lights, dead hands, and waxen masks with which the necromancer of that day sought to impress the vulgar mind. But in place of these a multitude of objects, quaint, curious, ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... was, during his residence among us, one of the most honoured inhabitants of Gandercleugh. No one thought of disputing his title to the great leathern chair on the "cosiest side of the chimney," in the common room of the Wallace Arms, on a Saturday evening. No less would our sexton, John Duirward, have held it an unlicensed intrusion, to suffer any one to induct himself into the corner of the left-hand pew nearest to the pulpit, which the Sergeant regularly ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... reply. And a greater trouble still than these logical mazes, was the introduction of logic into every subject whatever, so far, that is, as it was done. Before I was at Oriel, I recollect an acquaintance saying to me that "the Oriel Common Room stank of Logic." One is not at all pleased when poetry, or eloquence, or devotion, is considered as if chiefly intended to feed syllogisms. Now, in saying all this, I am saying nothing against the deep piety and earnestness which were characteristics of this second phase of the Movement, in which ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... cabin, a prey to perpetual disquiet; the doctor was arranging his notes of the expedition; some of the crew were on the deck, others in the common room. ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... we became used to the new life, though it was hard to go hungry day after day, and bear the discomforts of the common room, shared by so many; the hard beds (we had little bedding of our own), and the confinement to the narrow limits of the yard, and the tiresome sameness of the life. Meal hours, of course, played the most important part, while ...
— From Plotzk to Boston • Mary Antin
... of bed and shoved under a cold shower. He took a cold shower every morning, and if the sophomores wanted to give him another one at night—all right, he was willing. He had to confess that "Eliza Crossing the Ice" had been enormous fun. The freshmen were commanded to appear in the common room in their oldest clothes. Then all of them, the smallest lad excepted, got down on their hands and knees, forming a circle. The smallest lad, "Eliza," was given a big bucket full of water. He jumped upon the back of ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... human dwellings, were it not that the projecting wooden chimneys, the low-browed entrances, and the almost imperceptible windows, cause the spectator to conclude that they are inhabited. A dark narrow passage, about four feet high, leads on one side into the common room, and on the other to a few compartments, some of which are used as storehouses for provisions, and the rest as winter stables for the cows and sheep. At the end of this passage, which is purposely built so low, as an additional defence against the cold, the fireplace is generally ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... Mellish leading by a couple of yards, passed through the cloisters, and came to the middle block, where the Masters' Common Room is. I had no particular reason for going to that block, but it was all on my way to the House, and I knew that Mellish hated having his footsteps dogged. That ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... wish I did. Well, we received her, on her arrival, in the Common Room—called so because we all assemble there every evening, when the work of the day is done. Sometimes we have the reading of a poem or a novel; sometimes debates on the social and political questions ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... August day some fifty years ago, had just pass'd the meridian of a country town in the eastern section of Long Island, a single traveler came up to the quaint low-roof'd village tavern, open'd its half-door, and enter'd the common room. Dust cover'd the clothes of the wayfarer, and his brow was moist with sweat. He trod in a lagging, weary way; though his form and features told of an age not more than nineteen or twenty years. Over one shoulder was slung a sailor's jacket, and in his hand ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... dressed her hurt, and rested a while, they took her to explore the wonders of the place. Beyond this great cistern, that was their common room, lay more to the number of six or seven, one of the smallest of which was given to Nehushta and herself to dwell in. Others were filled with stores enough to last them all for months. Last of all was a ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... of unrest about the inn at Witley this evening. An hour ago a coach had arrived, and the best rooms were in requisition for the travellers, a lady and her maid. It was whispered amongst the loungers in the common room that she was a great lady, in spite of the fact that she travelled in a hired coach, but this idea was perhaps due to the fact that the maid was imperious, and demanded attention in a manner that carried weight. The servant of an ordinary ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... disease of unenlightened times, and that in our strong sunlight only truth can get received: then let us contrast the portrait for instance of Sir Robert Peel as it is drawn in the Free Trade Hall, at Manchester, at the county meeting, and in the Oxford Common Room. It is not so. Faithful and literal history is possible only to an impassive spirit; it is impossible to man, until perfect knowledge and perfect faith in God shall enable him to see and endure every fact in its reality; until perfect love shall kindle in him under its touch the one just ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... morning breakfasted with Bryce and a dozen or more graduates and undergraduates in the common room at Oriel, and was delighted with the relations between instructors and instructed then shown. Nothing could be better. The discussion turning upon Froude, who had evidently fascinated many of the younger men ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... lord's house is thus, viz. a great open hall, a kitchen and buttery, a parlour, over which a chamber for my lord and lady; all the rest lye in common, viz. the men-servants in the hall, the women in a common room) or oriele, the folk at the side-tables. (Oriele is an ear, but here it signifies a little room at the upper end of the hall, where stands a square or round table, perhaps in the old time was an oratory; in every old Gothic hall is one, viz. at Dracot, Lekham, Alderton, &c.) The meat was served ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... This time Redgrave did not wait upon accident; he sent a note, begging that he might have the pleasure of another talk with her. He would call at a certain hour, and take his chance of finding her at home. When he presented himself, Alma was sitting in the common room of the pension with two German ladies; they in a few minutes withdrew, and familiar conversation became possible. As the windows stood open, and there were chairs upon the balcony, Redgrave shortly proposed a move in that direction. ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... sitting sociably beside him; children at play; women mending clothes, embroidering, spinning with the distaff at their own doorsteps; many idlers, letting the pleasant morning pass in the sweet-do-nothing; all assembling in the street, as in the common room of one large household, and thus brought close together, and made familiar with one another, as they can never be in a different system of society. As usual along the road we passed multitudes of shrines, where the Virgin was painted ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the whole female society of Oxford. The change was inevitable, if education was to be made a profession, instead of being, as it had been in the hands of celibate Fellows of Colleges, merely the transitory occupation of a man whose final destination was the parish. Those who remember the old Common Room life, which is now departing, can not help looking back with a wistful eye to its bachelor ease, its pleasant companionship, its interesting talk and free interchange of thought, its potations ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... crooked line of slushy footprints in the mire; and blowing on his chilly hands and rubbing them against each other, poorly defended from the searching cold by threadbare mufflers of grey worsted, with a private apartment only for the thumb, and a common room or tap for the rest of the fingers; Toby, with his knees bent and his cane beneath his arm, still trotted. Falling out into the road to look up at the belfry when the Chimes ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... for the present. The first pupil to arrive, singularly enough, was named Adam,—Adam Kujoshk, from Walpole Island. We had eighteen pupils altogether, boys and girls; a lady was engaged to act as matron and school teacher; they had lessons and meals in a large common room in one of the cottages, and in this one the matron and the girls resided. The other was occupied by the laundress and the boys. For ourselves we had engaged an old house at the Point, not more than half a mile distant across the bay; so all ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... conducted to the common room, a spacious apartment immediately under the dome. At one end a huge stone fireplace, in which ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... he could not decide to let him in with a pass for the preliminary prison. Besides, it was too late. "Please to come again to-morrow. To morrow, at 10, everybody is allowed to go in. Come then, and the inspector himself will be at home. Then you can have the interview either in the common room or, if the inspector allows it, in ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... wander-books, were imperiously directed to their herberge for accommodation, while we were permitted to consult our own tastes upon the matter. Of course we accompanied our friends. The herberge gained, we descended by a stone step to the common room, a vaulted chamber half under ground, very ill lighted, and provided only with a few rude tables and benches. We called for beer, being weary and thirsty, (the Praguer beer is especially good) and requested ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... puts a match to them they go off "pop." The Germans rendered slight assistance, but the Keating's contained in our parcels soon got them under way. The sanitary conditions were not good, but I must admit to having seen a little disinfectant. Part of the time we were allowed a common room of our own, but latterly had to share one with the Russians. Washing was sent to the town weekly. A medical orderly was on the premises during the day, and a doctor came two or three times a week. ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... common room. Dr. Dry gave us an instance of a gentleman who kept the gout out of his stomach by drinking old Madeira. Conversation chiefly on the expeditions. Company broke up at four. Dr. Dry and myself played at backgammon for a brace of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... a name!" growled Charlot, and, turning suddenly from the men to whom he had been issuing directions, he sprang up the steps and entered the inn. As he crossed the threshold of the common room he was confronted by the tall figure of ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... porter's lodge, and both opened on to the wide-covered entrance from the street. Among the passengers came in a young, fair-haired lady, attended by an elderly French maid. The poor young creature tossed her head, and shrank away from the common room, full of evil smells and promiscuous company, and demanded, in German French, to be taken to some private apartment. We heard that she and her maid had come in the coupe, and, probably from pride, poor young lady! ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... standing beside the road, in a valley surrounded by a wide amphitheatre of high hills. There is a good deal of copse and forest on the estate, high hills of pasture land, old, cultivated fields, and all such pleasant matters. The General sat in an easy-chair in the common room of the family, looking better than when in Salem, with an air of quiet, vegetative enjoyment about him, scarcely alive to outward objects. He did his best to express a hospitable pleasure at seeing me; but did not succeed, so that I could distinguish his words. He loves to sit amidst ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... * Common room man, a servant who is entirely employed in attending upon the members of the ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... single step on the threshold below. Some one entered the common room. He traversed the floor during a few minutes, and then, ascending the staircase, he entered my chamber. It was Sarsefield. Trouble and dismay were strongly written on his countenance. He seemed totally unconscious ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... completely disappeared at three o'clock. We went down into the common room. Babet was sewing in the chimney corner, with her head bent over her work; and little Marie was seated on the ground, in front of the fire, gravely dressing a doll. Jacques and I had placed ourselves at a mahogany writing-table, ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... dried our wet garments, and in some degree recompensed us for the fatigues which we had undergone in scrambling up the bellotas. A rather singular place was this same posada of Muros. It was a large rambling house, with a spacious kitchen, or common room, on the ground floor. Above stairs was a large dining-apartment, with an immense oak table, and furnished with cumbrous leathern chairs with high backs, apparently three centuries old at least. Communicating with this apartment was a wooden gallery, open to the air, which led to a small chamber, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... she had changed her dress and come to the common room,—"what's to be for supper? I'll get it. You sit still and read, if you want to, while it's quiet. What must ...
— The Carpenter's Daughter • Anna Bartlett Warner
... the State Room, a hole of a place, very meanly furnished, where your great Smugglers or ruffling Highwaymen were sometimes lodged, at a guinea a day for their accommodation, was only so much better from the common room in so far as the prisoner had bed and board to himself; but for nastiness and creeping things—which I wonder, so numerous were they, did not crawl away with the whole prison bodily: but 'tis hard to find those that are unanimous, even vermin.—For all that made ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... the sound of the music from the common room, or hall, summoned to the dance. The musician was an old gray-headed negro, who had been the itinerant orchestra of the neighborhood for more than half a century. His instrument was as old and battered as himself. The greater part of the time he scraped on two or three ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving
... notes—shouldn't say ventured either—run no risk at all, because why? I knows my birds." About ten days after this harangue, I called again, at about three o'clock one afternoon. The landlord was seated on a bench by a table in the common room, which was entirely empty; he was neither smoking nor drinking, but sat with his arms folded, and his head hanging down over his breast. At the sound of my step he looked up. "Ah," said he, "I am glad you are come: I was just thinking about you." ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... Flora immediately disappeared into the kitchen, to order a bit of superior cheese, and to have some slices of ham put on the gridiron, and then, coming back to the common room, went rummaging about, from cupboard to cupboard, in search of cake and sweetmeats. Fleda ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell |
